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`Zombie Go Boom' Attack on YouTube Ad Policy Is Ruled a Bust

YouTube isn’t responsible for biting into ‘Zombie Go Boom’ channel’s revenue, a Judge ruling said.

`Zombie Go Boom' Attack on YouTube Ad Policy Is Ruled a Bust
Website pages from YouTube.com are displayed on computer monitors in London, U.K. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- The freedom to produce a YouTube channel dedicated to bashing the undead doesn’t come with a guarantee of steady income.

So said a judge in ruling Wednesday that Google’s video-sharing website isn’t responsible for taking a big bite out of the revenue that was flowing to the owners of the wildly popular “Zombie Go Boom” channel.

The two Arkansas-based creators of the zombie program, both Emmy award winners, complained in their lawsuit that when Google set out to sanitize YouTube content deemed offensive by some advertisers, the company triggered an “Adpocalypse” that “stifled the pursuits of enterprising and creative content providers.”

The production company said that while its 6 million to 10 million visitors a month allowed it to make as much as $500 a day from Google’s AdSense, the change in advertising rules reduced its revenue to as little as $20 a day.

But U.S. District Judge Edward Chen said YouTube’s agreement with content providers is very explicit: “YouTube is not obligated to display any advertisements alongside your videos.”

--With assistance from Robert Burnson

To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Blumberg in San Francisco at pblumberg1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net.

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.